DELIVERANCE INTO A RIGHTEOUS NEW WORLD - Why So Long?

Why So Long?

However, why has Jehovah waited so long to remove wickedness and deliver his people into the new world? Consider what had to be accomplished.  Most important is the vindication of Jehovah's sovereignty, his right to rule.  By permitting enough time to go by, he has demonstrated beyond  any doubt that human rule outside of his sovereignty has turned out to be a colossal failure.  (Jeremiah 10:23) So now Jehovah is fully justified in replacing human rule with the rule of his heavenly Kingdom under Christ. -Daniel 2:44; Matthew 6:9, 10.

What has taken place during all these centuries is similar to what happened in Abraham's time. Jehovah told Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan-but not for four hundred years "because the error of the Amorites [had] not come to completion."  )(Genesis 12:1-5; 15:13-16) Here the term "Amorites"  (a  dominant tribe) likely represents the peoples of Canaan as a whole.  So some four centuries would pass before Jehovah would  enable his people to take over Canaan. In the meantime Jehovah let the nations in Canaan develop their societies.  With what result? 

The Bible Handbook, by Henry H. Halley, notes that at Megiddo, archaeologist found  the ruins of a temple in Ashtoreth, goddess-wife of Baal.  He writes:  "Just a few steps from this temple was a cemetery, where many jars were found,m containing remains of infants who had been sacrificed in this temple . . .Prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth were official murderers of little children."  Another horrible practice was [what] they called 'foundation sacrifices.'  When a house was to be built, a child would be sacrificed, and its body built into the wall."

Halley comments:  "The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in  the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice. . . .Canaanites worshiped,by immoral indulgence, . . .and then, by murdering their first-born children, as a sacrifice to these same gods.  It seems that, in large measure , the land of Canaan had become a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah on a national scale.. . .Did a civilization  of such abominable filth and brutality have any right longer to exist? . . .Archaeologists who dig in the ruins of Canaanites cities wonder that God did not destroy them sooner than he did." -Compare 1 Kings 21:25, 26.

The wickedness of the Amorites had "come to completion ."  So Jehovah was now fully justified in exterminating them.  The same is true today.  This world is filled with violence, immorality, and contempt for God's laws. And since we  are rightly  appalled at the hideous child sacrifices in ancient Canaan, what of the sacrifices of tens of millions of young people in the wars of this world, far worse than anything in Canaan?  Certainly, Jehovah is now fully justified in bringing this wicked system to an end. 

Next time: Accomplishing Something Else

The Watchtower, 1997